Two newspapers threatened with closure in Belarus

New York, April 29, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns attempts by the Belarusian
Information Ministry to close down the opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya and the independent newspaper
Nasha Niva, and called on the
ministry to stop its harassment of both publications.

On Monday, the ministry
filed a motion with the Supreme Economic Court of Belarus to close down Narodnaya Volya and Nasha Niva on the basis that both papers have received two official
warnings within a year, according to a statement
published on the ministry's website. In
the warnings, authorities accused the newspapers of publishing false
information. Under Belarus'
repressive
media law, authorities can close down a publication that has received two reprimanding
notices within a calendar year.

Both newspapers
learned about the ministry's motion to shut them down from press reports; they
were not directly contacted, staffers at both papers told CPJ.

"We call on the
Belarusian Ministry of Information to withdraw its politically motivated action
against Narodnaya Volya and Nasha Niva and allow the papers to publish
without fear of further retaliation," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program
Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "The unrelenting official campaign against the
opposition and independent media in Belarus must be stopped."

Svetlana Kalinkina,
editor of Narodnaya Volya and a 2004
recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom Award, told CPJ that her paper
received its first official warning several months ago, when it published an
interview with an opposition activist. The officials' stated objection, Kalinkina
said, was that the activist's organization was "not registered in Belarus."
The second warning came after Kalinkina wrote an opinion piece, satirizing the
state television coverage of December post-presidential election protests in Minsk. Unable to grasp a
metaphor about propaganda Kalinkina used to headline her piece, authorities
accused her of publishing false information, she said.

Dmitry Pankovets, a
reporter for Nasha Niva, told CPJ that
his newspaper had received three warnings since last July in which authorities
accused the paper of carrying allegedly false statements. Most
recently, Nasha Niva was accused
of making false statements by the Information Ministry, the general prosecutor's
office, and the Belarusian security service, known as the KGB, after it covered
the deadly April 11 bombing at a Minsk subway, Pankovets told CPJ.

Since
the December 19 presidential vote--declared rigged by international
observers--Belarusian authorities have relentlessly
pursued the opposition media and critical journalists. The KGB, police, and
prosecutors have detained independent
journalists for interrogation, imprisoned critical
reporters on fabricated charges, raided
their apartments and newsrooms,
and confiscated their
reporting equipment.